👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Nigeria to launch 1-petabyte data centre

Since Yemi Cardoso took the helm at Nigeria’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), he has sought to answer one question: how to tame Nigeria’s surging inflation rate.

In search of answers, Cardoso has tried orthodox policies which his incumbent, Godwin Emefiele, ignored. The CBN governor has increased interest rates multiple times in hopes of taming the rising inflation. While experts believe his plans are working, albeit slowly, a lack of complimentary fiscal efforts has hurt the full recovery of the ailing naira.

In CBN’s latest effort, members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted Tuesday to raise interest rates by 150 basis points to 26.25% from 24.75%, a tempered increase compared to hikes in February—400 basis points—and March—200 basis points.

Why does this matter? Nigeria’s inflation rate stands at 33.69%. The inflation rate has continued an upward climb despite rate hikes from the CBN. Yesterday’s meeting was a major test of the bank’s stance of increasing interest rates until inflation is stabilised.  The increase was less than analysts’ prediction of a 100 basis point increase. 

“You can’t hike your way out of this mess”: As the CBN continues to navigate the inflation hurdle, experts believe that complementary fiscal efforts from the government, could be crucial to achieving moderate levels of inflation. “We need to take some tough decisions on the fiscal side, you can’t hike your way out of this mess,” Prof. Joseph Nnanna, Chief Economist at the Development Bank of Nigeria said. The downward turn of the naira has also contributed to driving a high inflation rate for Nigeria which heavily relies on a dwindling oil income for foreign exchange earnings. 

The Financial Times has ranked Moniepoint as Africa’s fastest-growing fintech based on its absolute and compound growth rate. Read more about it here.

Apple launched the first iPod with the tagline “1,000 songs in your pocket”. It launched with a promise that a small handheld device—about the size of a matchstick—had enough storage capabilities to contain all of your favourite songs.

While 1,000 songs was a significant feat for the iPod, the world quickly shifted from downloading music onto personal devices to streaming it directly from the web. But do you ever wonder where those streamed songs come from? Like the 1000 songs stored on the iPod, all the music, movies, and shows we stream come from massive data centres.

Think of data centres as giant digital warehouses that store all the information you use online, like your emails, photos, music, and even movies. 

Data centres operate in petabytes (millions of gigabytes). That’s like having enough space to hold all the music ever recorded… 400 billion times over! You must be wondering why you’re learning about data centres. Well…

Nigeria is set to launch a data centre with a 1.4 petabyte storage capacity by May 29, 2024. One petabyte (PB), by the way, is equal to 1,024 terabytes (TB).

Why does this matter? Nigeria is racing to meet global standards in terms of digital infrastructure and such a massive storage capacity provides a secure and powerful platform for businesses and government institutions. The government claims the data centre will also house citizens’ bio-data, and individuals to store their critical information

The launch of the data centre also puts Nigeria in conversations around AI, cloud computing and big data analytics, all of which require large compute and data spaces, as these technologies can help leapfrog growth in certain areas of Nigeria’s economy.

Very little is known about where this data centre is located or how long it’s been in the works, but we’ll bring you more news as soon as we have it.

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LemFi, a Nigerian fintech startup aiming to transform financial services for immigrants, has seen explosive growth in the past year. It secured $33 million in Series A funding in 2023. This year, it hit the ground running, restarting operations in Ghana in February after a brief pause, and in March it secured a strategic partnership with Visa’s Cross-Border Solutions division. The collaboration aimed at fueling LemFi’s global expansion into key markets like China, India, and Pakistan.

In more good news, the company has now received approval from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to operate remittances in the country. LemFi will work together with a Kenyan financial technology company called Flex Money Transfer to deliver remittance services.

Per LemFi, this development will enable Kenyans living in the US, UK, and Canada to send money home easily using the LemFi app. Money can be sent directly to M-PESA or other mobile money services, or bank accounts in Kenya for free.

Users can also set up a Kenyan Shilling wallet within the app and easily exchange currency for transactions. The company will be offering the best possible exchange rates. 

LemFi’s third partnership in Kenya: This news comes nine months after LemFi entered the Kenyan market via a partnership with PesaSwap in August 2023. LemFi also previously received approval from the CBK in April to work with Wapi Pay, a Kenyan fintech firm, for remittance services. 

Paystack gives ambitious businesses in Africa the payments tools they need to scale. A lot happened in 2023 – so many improvements, you might have missed some! As we continue building in 2024, here are the 10 stories that shaped our past year 👉🏾 paystack.com/2023

The trend of satellite internet is growing in Africa with several individuals and tech companies jumping on board. Leading the charge is Elon Musk’s Starlink which has received significant interest after launching in over 10 countries across the continent.

Now, an African internet provider is jumping aboard the satellite internet train. Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a pan-African connectivity company, is partnering with Eutelsat, a French satellite company to distribute Eutelsat’s OneWeb products which uses the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. This means Liquid’s customers will get faster internet access through Eutelsat’s special space technology.

Sidebar: LEO satellites orbit much closer to the Earth compared to traditional satellites. This makes the internet faster and reduces delay (latency) because the signals travel a shorter distance.

By combining OneWeb’s LEO satellites with Liquid’s existing network infrastructure, Liquid can offer significantly faster internet speed with lower wait times. Additionally, the integration of these technologies will mean a smooth and reliable service for Liquid’s customers. Companies will have easy access to internet breakout, including point-to-point services. 

“We’re excited about the positive impacts it will bring, particularly for Liquid’s customers in Central Africa’s mining industry, where reliable connectivity is crucial for their success”, Philippe Baudrier, Eutelsat’s VP of connectivity for Africa said.

LEO has seen some traction on the continent: Many companies in Africa are adopting LEO satellite technology to improve internet connectivity. Last month, Seacom, a telecoms company launched its LEO satellite internet in South Africa, partnering with Eutelsat OneWeb to offer services across the region.

Earlier this year, in February Eutelsat and Q-KON launched Africa’s first operational OneWeb LEO satellite service. 

Just a week ago, Avanti, a multi-orbit satellite provider, joined forces with Q-KON to bring high-speed internet to Africa via Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO satellites.

GITEX Africa returns a second time on May 29–31, 2024, to Marrakech, Morocco, discussing ways to accelerate the continent’s digital health revolution. GITEX is the continent’s largest all-inclusive tech event renowned for uniting the brightest minds in the technology industry.  Grab your tickets here.

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$69,824	– 1.64%	+ 5.93%
Ether	$3,756	+ 3.31%	+ 17.04%
Flux	$0.84	– 1.54%	– 11.87%
Solana	$143.98	– 1.49%	– 7.14%

* Data as of 06:40 AM WAT, May 22, 2024.

• TechCabal is set to announce its first set of speakers for the second edition of its Moonshot Conference which is set for October 9–11, 2024, at the Eko Convention Centre, Lagos, Nigeria. Moonshot will assemble Africa’s biggest thinkers, players and problem solvers on a global launchpad for change. If you want to join the stakeholders in Africa’s tech ecosystem for three days of insightful conversations, then get an early-bird ticket at 20% off. 

Here’s what we’ve got our eyes on

• Court to begin hearing on wrongful termination suit against NIBSS in November
• The Guardian sues logistics startup Kwik
• The next wave: What’s going on in Kenya’s B2B space?

Written by: Faith Omoniyi & Towobola Bamgbose

Edited by: Timi Odueso

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